


make sacrifices

by gabriphales



Series: gomens drabble hell [29]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Insecurity, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, Introspection, No Plot/Plotless, lots of uncomfortable religious metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:15:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23941420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabriphales/pseuds/gabriphales
Summary: just a drabble of aziraphale's feelings abt heaven and crowley, pre-armageddon, all the internalized shit he must have been going thru n stuff
Series: gomens drabble hell [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664713
Kudos: 11





	make sacrifices

**Author's Note:**

> thanks nicole dollanganger for the fic title again

his chest burns like he's been strangled half to death. lungs burning with the threat of asphyxiation, starved for air, desperate for tired comforts. aziraphale hardly has the effort to spare to keep his head from dipping entirely underwater. this self-imposed baptism he's made for himself. to be baptized is to be holy. and he's only ever wanted the holy mother's blood.

he'd nurse from her wrist like a crying child, if only it would keep him from feeling like this. so desperate, so hopeless, so wrong. a cruel, wretched, bad angel. every prayer that spills from his mouth an empty heaven for emptier threats.

his knees don't burn anymore, the altar he'd once laid out an empty cradle for his quiet cot death. there's bruises on his skin from the excess prayer. nobody ever cares to notice - or, perhaps, aziraphale doesn't let them in close enough to see.

he wishes he could be vulnerable. but it's so much easier praying and waiting, telling himself he'll eventually be saved. he doesn't know how to disconnect himself from his troubles. or if there's anything to pull apart, at this point. he seems so thoroughly indoctrinated, caught up in whatever holy plan the almighty, or heaven, or even just _gabriel_ and the rest have in store for him.

crowley always chides him for it. but what else can he do? try and fight it, push it back? the meal stuffed down his throat is better swallowed fully chewed, he isn't willing to risk choking for a chance at moral dignity. especially when he's so uncertain of right and wrong, good and evil - which should be innate for an angel. isn't he supposed to just know these things? isn't he supposed to be better?

of course, he's only on earth because of his initial failures. how can he expect anything more of himself?

talking with crowley is usually a tepid comfort. the lukewarm flavor of toeing lines he can't quite overstep. playing coy, dancing with his favorite role. but when they get into thorough discussion - well - aziraphale's too much of a people-pleaser, and he can't please heaven and hell both at once. 

crowley scolds him for his kowtowing, his ignorance of the inevitable apocalypse they'll soon come to face. and aziraphale pretends to be miffed with him. but really, he's just sad. miserably solemn, and aching for the days when collapsing on a fainting couch, over-wracked with emotion, hadn't seemed too unusual to the general public. oh, how he misses the easy excuse of anemia, malnutrition, or whatever plague was ransacking the city at that place in time. 

now, instead, he has to look crowley in the eye, and act as if he _isn't_ dreadfully burrowed in devotion so thick it's ruining him. devotion to heaven, devotion to crowley, and devotion to god - though she rarely answers his calls, despite the frequency.

and he hates to admit it, but sometimes, sometimes he thinks it would he easier if he just didn't know. if he was as ignorant as the other angels. if he could follow gabriel, and michael, and all the rest without question, without falter to his step. that'd make life a great deal easier, though nothing would ever heal him completely.

perhaps, he wonders, he just might have born from the wrong mold. an inadequate batch, of which he soured the most from. and if that's true, then it's not really his fault, he can't be blamed for being this way.

but he can't be trusted, either. and he rarely trusts himself as it is.

he's trusting himself less and less as time goes on.


End file.
